Ok – about 22 or 23 critical updates for Windows ME. I’m suspecting it’s never visited the Windows update site. While it’s going I make sure that the adware scanners and antivirus scanner get to pull updates from the web as well. It’s also time to scan for running network services that shouldn’t be running. It may be a dialup machine, but we don’t want UPNP listening over the connection.
Category: Viruses
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Antivirus update response times
We know that for Windows systems especially antivirus is a must. Up to date antivirus is the MOST important though. So how do the different vendors do in responsiveness and quick antivirus definition updates…? The SecurityFix has an article on just that today. The comparison is courtesy of av-test.org.
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Spyaxe Spytrooper spysherriff et al removal
There are so many “wolves in sheeps clothing” or maybe I should say wolves in sheepdogs clothing… Anyway, so many nasty malware’s that pose as protective utilities. Spyaxe, spytrooper, spy sherriff, etc. There is a tool that is specialized towards removing these. Smitrem which is short for smitfraud removal. (After the viral name of one of the first of this class of rogue.)
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The Santa Worm
More coverage is being given to the instant messaging worm that poses as a come on for a Santa Claus related site today. The only thing I think that I left out in last nights post was the name of the bug… IM.GiftCom.All On visiting the advertised site a rootkit is installed on the visiting machine.
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Disinfecting a PC… part 8
All right, now it’s time to give ad-aware a spin. I like being able to use several spyware scanners to get full coverage and cleaning. Ad-aware and spybot s&d are usually my first two choices. Realize that I’ve already taken a pass at this machine with AVG, BHODemon (for the browser helper objects) and Spybot S&D. Ad-aware finds a total of 700+ items.
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IM worm acts as a come on to a Santa Claus site
According to Information Week, there’s a new IM worm out hitting the MSN, ICQ, Yahoo and AIM networks. It poses as a come on for a Santa Claus site. On visiting the site, users receive an unexpected “present” a rootkit which is hidden.
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The CIA/FBI virus revisited
I’m sure you remember the CIA/FBI virus a few weeks back. There was a German version of this and apparently one individual took the warning email to heart and turned himself in for child pornography. Found this at Sunbeltblog and f-secure.
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Disinfecting a PC… part 7
Ok, another reboot after the BHO cleaning. Things are a good deal more responsive now, less disc swapping going on. (I suspect that those three missing BHO entries may have been causing the slow down, but I don’t know.) Installing wintop so that processes can be monitored. Also, getting spybot S&D *(search and destroy) installed and copying update from disc. The system is pretty much won at this point, I don’t see anything running that I haven’t LET run at boot, everything that I had as suspect has been disabled, now it’s just a matter of cleaning up the remnants and leftovers.
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Another example of how we’re vulnerable for identity theft
The SecurityFix is reporting on a security breech at reevesnamepins.com a company that supplies (among others) law enforcement personnel. Apparently, CardCops (which monitors for possible stolen data), discovered names and addresses of several law enforcement officers from across the country. The common denominator seemed to be recent orders at reevesnamepins.com and the company has confirmed a recent security breech.
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More wolves in sheeps clothing – rogue or suspect antispyware
(or for that matter, rogue or suspect antivirus.) What’s fascinating about this category is most of these products either use security vulnerabilities to get into a system, or merely convince a person browsing the web that they’re the right tool for the job. Kind of like virtual con-men in a sense…. Anyway… Spyware Confidential has a listing of the top 10 rogue/suspect antispyware programs. Some familiar names are mentioned…